Metallica snub angers Mustaine
Dave Mustaine has blasted his former Metallica bandmate Lars Ulrich for leaving him out of the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Mustaine wasn't among the Metallica members, past and present, in April's Class of 2009, because he didn't feature on any of the band's albums - despite performing with them for two years.
The guitarist reveals drummer Ulrich invited him to the ceremony, but only to watch - infuriating the Megadeth frontman.
He tells Metal Hammer, "Lars said... 'If you were on the record you got inducted, if you weren't on the record, you didn't', and would I come along and hang out and watch them get inducted? It makes for the same kind of mentality as a guy watching some other guy f**k his girlfriend.
"To say that I'm not on the record, well, I'd say that there are 40 million fans with Megadeth and Metallica records in their collections that would say that Dave is on the Metallica records because my name's on there, but I guess Lars never really looked past the word 'Ulrich'."
The experience has made Mustaine even more determined to make it into the Hall of Fame on his own accord, adding, "Bottom line is, I'm going to get into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame one way or another and he can't keep me out! When I do, I'm going to ask him to induct us and I'm gonna give eggs to everyone in the front row!"
Madonna Reveals Track List for “Celebration” Hits Collection
After taking requests from fans and carefully examining her extensive Warner Bros. catalog, Madonna has revealed the track list for her Celebration greatest-hits collection and confirmed a fresh collaboration with Lil Wayne titled “Revolver” will be included on the set. Celebration, which will be released in both single and double-CD formats, and Celebration: The Video Collection, are due on September 29th.
The 47-video Celebration two-DVD set kicks off with “Burning Up” and features previously unseen footage from “Justify My Love” along with the brand-new video for “Celebration” and clips for “Give It 2 Me” (from Hard Candy) and “Into the Groove.”
The 36 songs on the Celebration CD include 16 of the 17 tracks from Madonna’s first extensive hits comp, 1990’s Immaculate Collection (all but “Rescue Me”) and pairs of songs from her more recent releases: “Ray of Light” and “Frozen” from Ray of Light, “Don’t Tell Me” and “Music” from Music, “Hollywood” and “Die Another Day” from American Life, “Hung Up” and “Sorry” from Confessions on a Dance Floor, and “4 Minutes” and “Miles Away” from Hard Candy.
Full track list for all discs is as follows.
CD 1:
01) Hung Up
02) Music
03) Vogue
04) 4 Minutes
05) Holiday
06) Everybody
07) Like A Virgin
08) Into The Groove
09) Like A Prayer
10) Ray Of Light
11) Sorry
12) Express Yourself
13) Open Your Heart
14) Borderline
15) Secret
16) Erotica
17) Justify My Love
18) Revolver
CD 2:
01) Dress You Up
02) Material Girl
03) La Isla Bonita
04) Papa Don’t Preach
05) Lucky Star
06) Burning Up
07) Crazy For You
08) Who’s That Girl
09) Frozen
10) Miles Away
11) Take A Bow
12) Live To Tell
13) Beautiful Stranger
14) Hollywood
15) Die Another Day
16) Don’t Tell Me
17) Cherish
18) Celebration
Madonna Celebration DVD Track Listing:
01) Burning Up
02) Lucky Star
03) Borderline
04) Like A Virgin
05) Material Girl
06) Crazy For You
07) Into The Groove
08) Live To Tell
09) Papa Don’t Preach
10) True Blue
11) Open Your Heart
12) La Isla Bonita
13) Who’s That Girl
14) Like A Prayer
15) Express Yourself
16) Cherish
17) Vogue
18) Justify My Love
19) Erotica
20) Deeper and Deeper
21) Rain
22) I’ll Remember
23) Secret
24) Take A Bow
25) Bedtime Story
26) Human Nature
27) I Want You
28) You’ll See
29) Frozen
30) Ray Of Light
31) The Power Of Good-Bye
32) Beautiful Stranger
33) American Pie
34) Music
35) Don’t Tell Me
36) What It Feels Like For A Girl
37) Die Another Day
38) Hollywood
39) Love Profusion
40) Hung Up
41) Sorry
42) Get Together
43) Jump
44) 4 Minutes
45) Give It 2 Me
46) Miles Away
47) Celebration
Sirius hooks up iPhone to premium satellite radio
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sirius XM Radio unveiled a dock on Wednesday that lets iPhone users listen to premium satellite radio programing, including shock jock Howard Stern, a feature missing from previous iPhone software.
The $120 XM SkyDock turns Apple Inc's iPhone or iPod Touch into a satellite radio receiver.
The dock, which will go on sale in the next few months, is powered through a car's cigarette adapter. It comes with technology that eases installation by tapping into the car's radio system. It also allows users to flag songs they hear and buy them via Apple's iTunes software.
Sirius XM hopes to boost its subscriber base of 19 million. It gets most of its new subscribers when people buy cars with satellite radio receivers built in.
The company debuted the dock at a product showcase in New York, its biggest since Sirius completed its acquisition of XM Satellite Radio last year.
Earlier this month. Sirius said it lost some 300,000 subscribers who buy their own radios in the second quarter. It gained about 120,000 users through car sales.
With auto sales slowing, Sirius would like to get some of the tens of millions of iPhone and iPod touch owners.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has granted preliminary approval to the dock.
Sirius' first bid for iPhone users came with a software application released in June that lets fee-paying users stream Sirius' Internet package of music and talk stations.
Satellite radio analysts and Internet enthusiasts balked when they discovered that premium content such as Major League Baseball, NFL Football and Howard Stern were not available.
Shares of the company, which earlier this year secured financing from John Malone's Liberty Media Corp to stave off looming debt problems, have risen sharply this month, after it raised its income outlook, citing cost cuts and a potential rebound in automobile sales.
The company on Wednesday also showed several new radios priced below $100, as well as a $150 tabletop model.
Fall Out Boy singer Patrick Stump arrested in LA
LOS ANGELES – Singer Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy has been arrested on a two-year-old warrant for driving without a valid license.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore says the 25-year-old was arrested late Tuesday during a traffic stop by Los Angeles police. He was booked on an outstanding warrant for driving without a license and released early Wednesday after posting $15,000 bail.
Court records show Stump failed to appear on a misdemeanor driving without a valid driver's license case in Beverly Hills in June 2007. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest at the time.
A phone message left for Stump's music publicist wasn't immediately returned Wednesday.
Fall Out Boy is scheduled to play at the Reading Festival in England on Friday.
Butt puzzled by Gemini nom snub
TORONTO - "Corner Gas" creator and star Brent Butt says it's "kinda goofy" that his celebrated show has been shut out of the Gemini nominations this year, adding that he's taking the snub "with a pound of salt."
Nominations for the awards, which celebrate the best in Canadian television, were announced Tuesday, but "Corner Gas" did not make the cut in a single category.
Butt said Wednesday from Vancouver that he's surprised but is not upset.
"I always say in show business you have to take everything with a pound of salt," Butt said.
"If you win an award, you can't go around thinking you're the bees' pyjamas.... And when you don't get an award, you can't think, 'Well, this is a travesty of justice and I am outraged.' You've got to put it in perspective."
Butt said he's received several emails from others connected to the show and notes that "everybody's just kind of confused."
"I understand not winning any awards. If we went to the Geminis and didn't win any awards, you'd kind of roll with it and go, 'Oh, alright, whatever.' But to not even have a nomination, that is kind of goofy. I'm not angry or outraged, I'm too busy trying to wrap my head around it, you know? To kind of go, 'Really? Not a nomination? In 99 categories, after 107 episodes? OK."'
"Corner Gas" is widely considered the most popular Canadian sitcom of all time. It ended a critically acclaimed six-season run in April with a final episode that drew nearly three million viewers to CTV and the "A" channel. CTV says that's the biggest audience that has watched a Canadian-made scripted television series since the network began keeping electronic records in 1994.
The quirky series has been a hit with critics as well as audiences, and has nabbed five Geminis over the years including the best comedy titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007. This is the first year the show has not been up for the best comedy trophy since debuting in 2004.
This year, Citytv's dark comedy "Less Than Kind" leads the nominations among sitcoms with nine nods. It will face off against CBC's "Rick Mercer Report," CBC's "This Hour Has 22 Minutes", CMT's "Three Chords from the Truth," and Showcase's "Testees" for the title of best comedy.
CTV's cop drama "Flashpoint" leads overall with a record 19 nominations.
Nominees for the annual bash are determined by secret ballot by members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Deliberations are confidential.
The Geminis have not been without controversy. A few years back, CTV announced it would no longer submit news coverage for consideration.
This year's ceremony will take place Nov. 14 in Calgary and will be broadcast on Global and Showcase.
A spokesperson for the academy was not immediately available to comment.
Former "Gas" writer Paul Mather, now working on a new sitcom with Fred Ewanuick - another alum from the show - said he, too, was bewildered by the snub.
"With all due respect to the Geminis, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that you wouldn't nominate them," Mather, who did not work on "Gas"'s final season, said from Toronto.
"It does the Geminis themselves a disservice not to have Brent Butt and the gang there at the awards ceremony. Three million people watched that finale, that's just a big part of Canadian TV this year and I think that it's a missed opportunity for the Geminis not to recognize that. I don't think it's good for the industry and I don't think it's good for the Gemini Awards themselves. And I don't think it's fair."
While Mather said he was pleased to see the critically acclaimed but little-watched "Less than Kind" earn recognition, he argued that nominating smaller series alongside popular shows like "Gas" would go a long way towards promoting the industry as a whole.
"There's a lot of talk about trying to build a star system in Canada and if we're going to build a star system, let's put the TV stars on TV, you know," he said.
Butt said he's more preoccupied these days with work on his new sitcom, "Hiccups." He said shooting is expected to begin in the third week of September.
"All I can really do is sit back and scratch my head and go, OK, on to the next thing."
Ellie Greenwich, `Chapel of Love' co-writer, dies
NEW YORK – Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote some of pop music's most enduring songs, including "Chapel of Love," "Be My Baby" and "Leader of the Pack," died Wednesday, according to her niece. She was 68.
Greenwich died of a heart attack at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, where she had been admitted a few days earlier for treatment of pneumonia, according to her niece, Jessica Weiner.
Greenwich, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, was considered one of pop's most successful songwriters. She had a rich musical partnership with the legendary Phil Spector, whose "wall of sound" technique changed rock music. With Spector, she wrote some of pop's most memorable songs, including "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "River Deep, Mountain High." But Spector wasn't her only collaborator.
She also had key hits with her ex-husband Jeff Barry, including the dynamic song "Leader of the Pack" (years later, Broadway would stage a Tony-nominated musical with the same name based on her life).
"He was the first male I could actually harmonize with," she once said.
Greenwich was a native of Brooklyn. While she garnered her greatest success as a songwriter, Greenwich started out as a performer. She performed in talent shows as a child, and by the time she was a teen, she had her own group, called The Jivettes.
She went to college, where she met Barry, and shortly after graduation, began working for songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, where she got her break. She had her first chart success with the Jay and the Americans song "This Is It," which she wrote with Doc Pomus and Tony Powers.
She also had success with Barry as the duo The Raindrops with the songs "What a Guy" and "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget."
Greenwich also worked as an arranger and singer, a role that saw her working with artists including Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
She is also credited with helping Neil Diamond get his start and was a co-producer of early Diamond hits "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman."
"Ellie Greenwich was one of the most important people in my career. She discovered me as a down-and-out songwriter and with her then-husband Jeff Barry co-produced all my early hits on Bang records," said Diamond in a statement. "She has remained a great friend and mentor over the years and will be missed greatly."
Among the more famous songs she wrote are "Baby I Love You," "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "Look of Love."
Greenwich is survived by a sister, brother-in-law, nephew and her niece.
Dominick Dunne, author of crime stories dies
NEW YORK – Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.
Actor-director Griffin Dunne said in a statement released by Vanity Fair that his father had been battling bladder cancer for some time. But the cancer did not prevent Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions.
In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, he flew to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson's 1995 murder trial that spiked Dunne's considerable fame.
In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and The Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. At one point, he wrote that he and Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but did not see each other.
He discontinued his column at Vanity Fair to concentrate on finishing another novel, "Too Much Money," which is to come out in December. He also made a number of appearances to promote a documentary film about his life, "After the Party," which was being released on DVD.
Dunne was beginning to write his memoirs and, until close to the end of his life, he posted online messages on his own Web site commenting on events in his life and thanking his fans for their constant support.
Earlier this summer, he was well enough to attend a Manhattan party hosted by Tina Brown. Chatting with an Associated Press reporter, Dunne recalled being treated for cancer at a hospital in Germany where Fawcett was also a patient. He also spoke of Michael Jackson, who had recently died, and remembered lunching with the singer and Elizabeth Taylor. Jackson was so excited to see her, Dunne said, he presented her with a diamond necklace just for the occasion.
Dunne was part of a famous family that also included his brother, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne; his brother's wife, author Joan Didion; and his son, Griffin.
A one-time movie producer, Dunne carved a new career starting in the 1980s as a chronicler of the problems of the wealthy and powerful.
Tragedy struck his own life in 1982 when his actress daughter, Dominique, was slain — and that experience informed his fiction and his journalistic efforts from then on.
"If you go through what I went through, losing my daughter, you have strong, strong feelings of revenge," Dunne said in 1990 in discussing his novel, "People Like Us," in which the protagonist shoots the man convicted of killing his daughter.
"As a novelist, I could create a situation in which I could do in the book what I couldn't do in real life. I intended for Gus (the character in the book) to kill the guy. But when I got to that part I couldn't write it. He wounds him and goes to prison himself for a couple of years."
He was as successful as a journalist as he was as a novelist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms covering high profile trials. Writing for Vanity Fair, he covered such cases as the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 and the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, accused of murdering their millionaire parents, in 1993.
"You're talking about kids who had everything — the cars, the tennis courts, swimming pools, credit cards. And yet this happened," he said at the time of the Menendez trial.
As much as those trials riveted the nation, they were far overshadowed in 1994 when football great O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. With a trial that stretched out over a year and cable TV outlets providing endless coverage, the bespectacled Dunne became a familiar face to millions.
"I especially like to watch the jurors," Dunne explained to Fox TV during the trial. "I always pick out about four jurors who become my favorites. I sort of try to anticipate what they are thinking and how they are reacting."
He called his book on the Simpson trial, "Another City, Not My Own," "a novel in the form of a memoir." It, too, reached the best-seller lists.
"Every word is true, but it's written in the style of a novel," he said.
From the gritty world of the courtroom during the day, he would move into the glamorous realm of high society at night, dining with the rich and famous, charming them with his inside stories of the Simpson trial.
He was a colorful raconteur and his stories mesmerized listeners. He was a much sought after dinner guest on both coasts and in the glamour capitals of Europe where he frequently traveled. He was a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing members of royalty and movie stars.
His assignments took him to London to cover the inquest into Princess Diana's death and to Monaco to look into the mysterious death of billionaire Edmond Safra.
He continued appearing regularly on television, and in 2002 debuted a weekly program on Court TV, "Power, Privilege and Justice."
"I am openly pro-prosecution and make no bones about it," he told the San Francisco Chronicle that year. "I don't think there are enough people out there sticking up for victims."
The show gave him an added dose of celebrity when it was distributed in foreign countries.
He had already been working on "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," a fictionalized retelling of a sensational 1950s society murder, when his 22-year-old daughter Dominique was strangled by her former boyfriend, John Sweeney, in 1982, shortly after she had completed her first movie, "Poltergeist."
Sweeney was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, and was freed after serving less than four years of a six-year sentence. The verdict was seen as a major victory for the defense, and Dunne bitterly told the judge in court, "you withheld important information from this jury about this man's history of violent behavior." He later told the Los Angeles Times the sentence was "a tap on the wrist."
In a 1985 AP interview, Dunne said he nearly stopped writing when Dominique was slain.
"I was going to stop the book," Dunne said. "I didn't want to do a book that dealt with a murder. But my book editor wouldn't let me quit. She was incredibly sympathetic and lenient on time. I'm glad now that she didn't let me quit."
"People Like Us" and "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" were both turned into miniseries, and he stressed he had nothing to do with the changes the TV scriptwriters made.
"If I had wanted it that way, I would have written it that way," Dunne told TV Guide, referring to changes made in the key character in "People Like Us" to make him more sympathetic.
Among his other books were the 1993 "A Season in Purgatory," that helped revive interest in the 1975 slaying of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn. A Kennedy relative, Michael Skakel, was convicted in the killing in 2002.
He also wrote "An Inconvenient Woman" and "The Mansions of Limbo."
In 1999, Dunne published a memoir called, "The Way We Lived Then," a compliation of photographs of him and his family with famous people and his recollections of the glamour life he and his wife Lenny enjoyed for many years.
Dunne was born in 1925 in Hartford, Conn., to a wealthy Roman Catholic family and grew up in some of the same social circles as the Kennedys. In his memoir, he traced his fascination with Hollywood to a childhood trip he took "out West" with an aunt. They took one of those home of the stars bus tours and he vowed to come back and be part of the glamorous world he had glimpsed.
He served in the Army during World War II and graduated from Williams College in 1949.
While in the Army, he was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism in 1944 for carrying two wounded men to safety at the Battle of Merz in Feisberg, Germany.
He wrote that, "Winning a medal was the only thing I can ever remember doing that won any admiration from my father."
At Williams College in Massachusetts, he and a fellow student, Stephen Sondheim, appeared in plays together. After college, he went to New York where he landed a job in the fledgling TV industry as stage manager of the "Howdy Doody" children's show. NBC brought him to Hollywood to stage manage the famous TV version of "The Petrified Forest' with Humphrey Bogart.
Among his credits as a producer were the TV series "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Boys in the Band," a pioneering 1970 drama about gay life. Two of his films, "The Panic in Needle Park" and "Play It As It Lays," were written or co-written by his brother John and sister-in-law Didion.
He was invited to celebrity parties and said he decided then, "This is how I want to live."
But Dunne said his years living the high life in Hollywood left him divorced, broke and addicted, and he moved to a cabin in Oregon to dry out and to start over as a novelist. While his brother was the famous Dunne at that time, the Times said, "nowadays, (Dominick) Dunne is far better known."
John Gregory Dunne died in 2003.
Dunne and his wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, known as Lenny, were married in 1954. They divorced in the 1960s but he wrote that afterward they remained close nonetheless. She died in 1997.
Beside Dominique, they had two sons, Alexander and Griffin. Griffin has acted in such films as "An American Werewolf in London" and "After Hours." He branched into directing and producing as well, with "Fierce People" and "Practical Magic" among his credits.
Mass. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy dies at age 77
BOSTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.
In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, served alongside 10 presidents — his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them — compiling an impressive list of legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.
His only run for the White House ended in defeat in 1980. More than a quarter-century later, he handed then-Sen. Barack Obama an endorsement at a critical point in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, explicitly likening the young contender to President Kennedy.
To the American public, Kennedy was best known as the last surviving son of America's most glamorous political family, father figure and, memorably, eulogist of an Irish-American clan plagued again and again by tragedy.
Kennedy's death triggered an outpouring of superlatives, from Democrats and Republicans as well as foreign leaders.
"An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time," Obama said in a written statement.
"For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts," said Obama, vacationing at Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.
Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.
"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the statement said. "We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."
A few hours later, two vans left the family compound at Hyannis Port in pre-dawn darkness. Both bore hearse license plates — with the word "hearse" blacked out.
There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements. Two of Kennedy's brothers, John and Robert, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement that said, "It was the thrill of my lifetime to work with Ted Kennedy.....The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die."
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said that her husband and Kennedy "could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another."
Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, taking the seat that his brother John had occupied before winning the White House, and served longer than all but two senators in history.
His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead. He sought the White House more than a decade later, lost the Democratic nomination to President Jimmy Carter, and bowed out with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."
Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent surgery and a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.
He made a surprise return to the Capitol last summer to cast the decisive vote for the Democrats on Medicare. He made sure he was there again last January to see his former Senate colleague Barack Obama sworn in as the nation's first black president, but suffered a seizure at a celebratory luncheon afterward.
He also made a surprise and forceful appearance at last summer's Democratic National Convention, where he spoke of his own illness and said health care was the cause of his life. His death occurred precisely one year later, almost to the hour.
He was away from the Senate for much of this year, leaving Republicans and Democrats to speculate about the impact what his absence meant for the fate of Obama's health care proposals.
Under state law, Kennedy's successor will be chosen by special election. In his last known public act, the senator urged state officials to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name an interim replacement. But that appears unlikely, leaving Democrats in Washington with one less vote for the next several months as they struggle to pass Obama's health care legislation.
His death came less than two weeks after that of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver on Aug. 11. Kennedy was not present for the funeral, an indication of the precariousness of his own health.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy's son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said his father had defied the predictions of doctors by surviving more than a year with his fight against brain cancer.
The younger Kennedy said that gave family members a surprise blessing, as they were able to spend more time with the senator and to tell him how much he had meant to their lives.
"There are very few people who have touched the life of this nation in the same breadth and the same order of magnitude," Obama said in April as he signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law.
Kennedy arrived at his place in the Senate after a string of family tragedies. He was the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to die of natural causes.
Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a plane crash in World War II. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles as he campaigned for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. Years later, in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash at age 38 along with his wife.
It fell to Ted Kennedy to deliver the eulogies, to comfort his brothers' widows, to mentor fatherless nieces and nephews. It was Ted Kennedy who walked JFK's daughter, Caroline, down the aisle at her wedding.
Tragedy had a way of bringing out his eloquence.
Kennedy sketched a dream of a better future as he laid to rest his brother Robert in 1968: "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."
After John Jr.'s death, the senator said: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years."
His own legacy was blighted on the night of July 18, 1969, when Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, on Martha's Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old worker with RFK's campaign, was found dead in the submerged car's back seat 10 hours later.
Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence and a year's probation. A judge eventually determined there was "probable cause to believe that Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently ... and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."
At the height of the scandal, Kennedy went on national television to explain himself in an extraordinary 13-minute address in which he denied driving drunk and rejected rumors of "immoral conduct" with Ms. Kopechne. He said he was haunted by "irrational" thoughts immediately after the accident, and wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys." He said his failure to report the accident right away was "indefensible."
After Chappaquiddick especially, Kennedy gained a reputation as a heavy drinker and a womanizer, a tragically flawed figure haunted by the fear that he did not quite measure up to his brothers. As his weight ballooned, he was lampooned by comics and cartoonists in the 1980s and '90s as the very embodiment of government waste, bloat and decadence.
But in his later years, after he had remarried, he came to be regarded as a statesman on Capitol Hill, seen as one of the most effective, hardworking lawmakers Washington has ever seen.
A barrel-chested figure with a swath of white hair, a booming voice and a thick, widely imitated Boston accent, he coupled fist-pumping floor speeches with his well-honed Irish charm and formidable negotiating skills. He was both a passionate liberal and a clear-eyed pragmatist, willing to reach across the aisle to get things done.
Kennedy's speech in accepting defeat to Carter electrified the Democratic convention and turned out to be a defining moment. At 48, he seemed liberated from the towering expectations and high hopes invested in him after the death of his brothers, and he plunged into his work in the Senate.
First elected to the Senate in 1962 to his brother John's seat, easily re-elected in 2006, Kennedy served close to 47 years, longer than all but two senators in history: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (50 years and counting) and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who died after a tenure of nearly 47 1/2 years. Kennedy's career spanned 10 presidencies.
His legislative achievements included bills to provide health insurance for children of the working poor, the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, abortion clinic access, family leave, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
He was also a key negotiator on legislation creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit for senior citizens and was a driving force for peace in Ireland and a persistent critic of the war in Iraq.
Kennedy did not always prevail. In late 2008, he unsuccessfully lobbied for niece Caroline's appointment to the Senate from New York. New York Gov. David Paterson chose then-Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand instead.
Wildly popular among Democrats, Kennedy routinely won re-election by large margins. He grew comfortable in his role as Republican foil and leader of his party's liberal wing.
President George W. Bush welcomed Kennedy to the Rose Garden on several occasions as he signed bills that the Democrat helped write.
"He's the kind of person who will state his case, sometimes quite eloquently and vociferously, and then on another issue will come along and you can work with him," Bush said shortly before his first term began in 2001.
But Bush was also the target of some of Kennedy's sharpest attacks. Kennedy assailed the Iraq war as Bush's Vietnam, a conflict "made up in Texas" and marketed by the Bush administration for political gain.
Kennedy and his niece Caroline shook up the Democratic establishment in January 2008 when they endorsed Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination for president.
After Obama won in November, Kennedy renewed words once spoken by his brother John, declaring: "The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership."
Born in 1932, the youngest of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was part of a family bristling with political ambition, beginning with maternal grandfather John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a congressman and mayor of Boston.
Round-cheeked Teddy was thrown out of Harvard in 1951 for cheating, after arranging for a classmate to take a freshman Spanish exam for him. He eventually returned, earning his degree in 1956.
He went on to the University of Virginia Law School, and in 1962, while his brother John was president, announced plans to run for the Senate seat JFK had vacated in 1960. A family friend had held the seat in the interim because Kennedy was not yet 30, the minimum age for a senator.
Kennedy was immediately involved in a bruising primary campaign against state Attorney General Edward J. McCormack, a nephew of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack.
"If your name was simply Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke," chided McCormack.
Kennedy won the primary by 300,000 votes and went on to overwhelmingly defeat Republican George Cabot Lodge, son of the late Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in the general election.
Devastated by his brothers' assassinations and injured in a 1964 plane crash that left him with back pain that would plague him for decades, Kennedy temporarily withdrew from public life in 1968. But he re-emerged in 1969 to be elected majority whip of the Senate.
Then came Chappaquiddick.
Kennedy still handily won re-election in 1970, but he lost his leadership job. He remained outspoken in his opposition to the Vietnam War and support of social programs but ruled out a 1976 presidential bid.
In the summer of 1978, a Gallup Poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over President Carter 54 percent to 32 percent. A year later, Kennedy decided to run for the White House with a campaign that accused Carter of turning his back on the Democratic agenda.
The difficult task of dislodging a sitting president was compounded by Kennedy's fumbling answer to a question posed by CBS' Roger Mudd: Why do you want to be president?
"Well, it's um, you know you have to come to grips with the different issues that, ah, we're facing," Kennedy said. "I mean, we can, we have to deal with each of the various questions of the economy, whether it's in the area of energy ..."
He bowed out of the race after getting roundly beaten by Carter in the primaries and losing a rules battle at the Democratic convention. Later, when asked to assess the campaign, he replied: "Well, I learned to lose, and for a Kennedy that's hard."
Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, known as Joan, in 1958. They divorced in 1982. In 1992, he married Washington lawyer Victoria Reggie. His survivors include a daughter, Kara Kennedy Allen; two sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island; and two stepchildren, Caroline and Curran Raclin.
In 1991, Kennedy roused his nephew William Kennedy Smith and his son Patrick from bed to go out for drinks while staying at the family's Palm Beach, Fla., estate. Later that night, a woman Smith met at a bar accused him of raping her at the home.
Smith was acquitted, but the senator's carousing — and testimony about him wandering about the house in his shirttails and no pants — further damaged his reputation.
Kennedy offered a mea culpa in a speech at Harvard that October, recognizing "my own shortcomings, the faults in the conduct of my private life."
Later on, his second wife appeared to have a calming influence on him, helping him rehabilitate his image.
Kennedy's family life has been marked by illness.
Edward Jr. lost a leg to bone cancer in 1973 at age 12. Kara had a cancerous tumor removed from her lung in 2003. In 1988, Patrick had a noncancerous tumor pressing on his spine removed. He has also struggled with depression and addiction and announced in June that he was re-entering rehab.
Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass," is set to be published in the fall.